Policies needed so when we leave we are better off

The government has already carried out two of the essential policy changes for us to be better off. The first is to switch the aim of policy to the promotion of prosperity and growth. The second is to make selective increases in public sector employment with teachers, police and doctors, and to expand worthwhile public investment.

The third must be to cut taxes in a Brexit budget. In a fast moving global economy capital and talent moves to the places with the more attractive tax rates. The UK government has been correct to lower our Corporation Tax rates at a time when the USA, India and others are doing the same. It is also necessary to have competitive personal Income Tax and transaction tax rates. The planned cuts in National Insurance will boost personal incomes and provide a stimulus to consumption.

The UK needs to lower Stamp Duties and CGT on property transactions. Lower rates will also bring in more revenue by encouraging more capital into the UK and fostering more transactions.

The UK needs to reduce the top rate of Income Tax to the 40% that prevailed during most of Labour’s time in office. That would help resolve the issue of doctors’ pay.

The government should implement its planned cuts to tariffs on imports from non EU sources. All components needed for Uk manufacture should be tariff free. All foodstuffs that we are unable to grow for ourselves should also be tariff free.

The UK should expand its freeport strategy and ally them to enterprise zones where it is easy to get permissions and support to base a new or expanding business.

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208 Comments

How long does it take to train the above ? Why were under the last Conservative government, the numbers of police officers reduced ? To make up the shortfall in doctors, is the government planning on importing more ?

With the proposed reductions in the tax take, how does the government expect to fund the above ? Or is it to borrow more ?

If the WA and PD prohibit the UK from doing much that we want, ie spend our own money, create our own laws and control our own borders, how can it be said to be Leaving the EU ?

It seems to me that an awful lot of political parties are promising much but, once elected, will renege on said promises knowing full well we will not be able to do a damned thing about it.

So what does the Conservative Party offer me in terms of constitutional reform to address this and other issues ?

What does the Conservative Party of the people of England who have no democratic voice of their own ?

Yes Mark . The question I want answered is why, for at least the past 40 years, we have had to rely on recruiting doctors and nurses abroad to staff the National Health Service? And why, as a relatively rich country, we need to prey parasitically on the taxpayers of mostly poorer countries to train them? Is NHS pay too low? Do we deliberately restrict doctor training to save money? Is nurse training badly designed? Or have we just made the NHS a horrible place to work?

Its more complicated than just changing a few tax rules, we need a comprehensive analysis of our economy in a world of trans-national super corporations and the digital economy. How do we fairly tax a company like Facebook? As a thought provoking article I came across says: ‘We can only chose one, our national economy or globalization’.

Our country is, in many ways, using 19th century thinking to try to solve 21st century problems. Yes, make obvious corrections, but there must be a long deep look at what kind of economy we are, and where we want to go. What industries SHOULD we promote, and which can we let go. Start with our social services and bring them into the 21st Century, that should save billions!

Re 19th century thinking,you are correct-the problem is the UK was the first globalist power and retained that way of thinking even while it’s power was collapsing after WWII,agreeing to be part of the restructuring of Europe under US domination after the war.What the Soviets said at the time about the likely effects of the Bretton Woods institutions and the Marshall Plan has turned out to be absolutely correct.

By spurning Atlanticist-globalist hegemony,Russia and even more so in recent years ,China, have been able to develop -successfully-their own versions of the likes of Facebook,Amazon,Google,Uber,etc.Neither we,nor Europe,have.

Russia and even more so China in recent years have been able to develop “successfully” their own versions of … simply because they stole IP and did not spend the years and money doing the basic research, industrial R&D and proving in markets.

We shipped telecoms gear to china and in the early years had to padlock boards into switch racks to prevent them being removed for “assessment”. Fat lot of good that did, especially with greedy idiots looking to make a couple of dollars more or less giving the technology away.

You are lauding their willingness to thieve not their drive for independence.

Nations have always stolen ideas from each other.In the earlier period of Chinese ascendancy,the west took many technologies from the east without paying for them.Now the shoe is on the other foot.History didn’t end!

Both China and Russia have plenty of indigenous capability too-look at whose filing the most patents,why Huawei has no effective competition in 5G and why the USA has no answer to Russia’s new suite of weapons.

Patents are not an indicator of capability, they reveal elements so people can copy and improve but the process relies on governments upholding associated law, which they do not. The majority of technology I worked on was not patented, merely kept confidential, though some was as a means to trade with other suppliers, Apple acquired one of mine.

Huawei having no effective competition will be news to it’s competitors – Nokia, Ericsson, Cisco and others. In fact it is reported Huawei might consider selling it’s 5G portfolio to a western competitor.

Which technologies exactly did the “West”, which did not exist as such at that time, take from the East without paying? Then compare that with technologies and capabilities they have acquired from the West.

One part of the otherwise excellent manifesto will certainly impoverish us. This is the promotion of the ‘zero carbon’ policy allied to the ban on fracking, a practice which was recently calculated to have benefited the US economy to the tune of a trillion dollars.

These craven surrenders to the Green Mafia will close down most of what remains of our manufacturing. I am not encouraged by newspaper reports that Carrie Symons is a driving force behind these moves, a sense of deja vu harking back to the Cameron era and his Greenpeace activist wife.

No you are quite wrong. Climate has always changed. If not why did it warmer getting the world out of the ice age? Is it man made, no substantive evidence to prove this, but much money made by the vociferous green lobby.

Ian is correct, the zero carbon promises are fake. We cannot afford it and because of its estimated cost the public should have a say.

Er … yes there is tons of evidence to prove it. Specifically from the Mauna Lao observatory and Antarctic ice cores.

But if you choose not to look at it, that’s your own business.

Indeed Edward2, I’m not arguing humanity will be wiped out as a result of climate change. This is an economic argument. It is getting more and more expensive to sort this out with every passing year – and I don’t want to leave my kids footing the bill.

Many are claiming there will be extinction in a few decades even if you are not.
So your children won’t be ” living on a rubbish tip” as you reviously claimed.

Incidentally the UK has reduced its emissions by 40% compared to 1990.
A remarkable achievement.
You talk as if nothing is being done when we have the radical Climate Change Act in force and we are spending many billions on combating climate change.

I’m merely rebutting this climate change denial claptrap robustly. Because it not only untrue but harmful both economically and to society at large. I simply will not stand for it.

The example below where someone cites glaciers in Montana is a case in point. If you are concerned about global warming, the logical thing to look at is average global temperatures over time, not glaciers in Montana. It’s just bizarre.

The UK produces around 8m tonnes pa of steel, down from 25m tonnes 50 years ago. China produces 930m tonnes pa. Amongst the reasons for the UK’s remaining miniscule production being in difficulty are ‘green’ policies forcing up the price of electricity. EU membership or otherwise is an irrelevance in this. this will especially be so if there is a tariff free FTA.

UK manufacturing and engineering sectors have seen massive investment, many many new factories and plants and INCREASED global exports . There are skills shortages and difficulty with keeping up with demand . 20% of UK workforce are employed in manufacturing and engineering

More than 90 new large scale manufacturing plants have been opened in UK since 2016

For a laugh I just googled it

All the top hits where from the Guardian & Independent newspapers telling us that manufacturing was failing

All the next hits were from the industry itself, individual companies and the trade associations all telling us how well its going

Heres my advice Martin , stop reading political propaganda and follow the people with skin in the game

Perhaps you have not noticed that the largest German manufacturer of windmill blades has forecast a collapse of subsidies and is now seriously considering moving its manufacturing base to somewhere outside of the EU? Presumably to a country with much lower energy costs and perhaps slacker standards of H&S and employee costs…..

odd that! I assumed the disaster of Merkel making millions welcome to survive a possible drowning, starving on a long march through several countries, arrive in Germany to become the ‘slave’ labour of low income manufacturing – only to find they preferred the benefits route….so go find cheaper labour somewhere else.

Correct. Climate change is a natural.course if events.
The peo-climate change wannabes never explain the growth in glaciers in, for example, Montana.
They hide the fact that signs stating glaciers are diminishing have been removed and the end dates of 2030 have been taken down. 25% increase in size over the last 15 years …….But that doesn’t suit the narrative for more taxes on the less well off.

Global warming was an issue in the 1980’s when Margaret Thatcher first raised it as a global emergency. It is still the core problem today.

The only thing that has changed is that we are starting to see the consequences on weather – principally more hurricanes and fires – which we can now attribute to global warming (which we didn’t before).

So the narrative hasn’t changed. But yes, you’re right, the argument for dealing with climate change has strengthened as we have seen the effects of global warming on our weather.

JR calls for more productive public investment. We need less unproductive public investment, and unproductive investment mandated by government. We can include e.g. HS2. Zero carbon is the worst example because it will cripple the UK economy, making us uncompetitive, and making energy unaffordable to the poor, alongside housing where several trillion would need to be spent on the existing housing stock that would have to be recouped via rents and larger mortgages.

– don’t try for monolithic agreements covering everything
– expect phased agreements that will build and evolve
– for Phase One at least keep to the three digit SIC codes
– don’t have quota/tariffs. Just tariffs, if any
– don’t link to environmental, workers rights or politics
– don’t link to competition policy or state aid
– all agreements have a five year sunset clause

The objectives are that 1) everything can be imported [but have to meet same UK regulations as applies to UK sourced supplies] 2) for some categories of goods and service imports there is a tariff to be paid 3). Er, no. That’s it. There isn’t a third objective.

Concurrently buildup Trading Standards capacity for consumer protection that then fully covers both imports and goods and services produced in the UK. It makes no sense to hold imports to a higher standard than local imports

Yes to everything you have written. However will the type of exit from the EU that is being planned via WA2 allow all the freedom necessary to implement such financial policies. We have a tendency in the UK to gold plate any rules we are handed for adoption where our EU partners have a more pick and mix approach. The Irish for instance have very low rates of Corporation Tax to encourage startups even though this is against the EU’s policy of tax standardisation. The EU seem to allow flexibility in national borrowing when it suits them. One rule I witness the breaking of relates to the size of fish they consider mature. I had always thought the Turbot a large flat fish. Well it is when Rick Stein cooks it, but not on the fish counters in Spain.

If despite WA2, designed by the EU to nullify a potentially very competitive country off their shores, we create the sort of enterprise zone you envisage then I am with you all the way. If with a Conservative majority we ditch WA2 and proceed as we have both advocated I would be even happier.

We have to repeat daily that the WA ties us into the EU regulatory sphere by agreeing a Level playing field.
This will be adjudicated by the ECJ. We are not leaving in any meaningful way.
Also the EU want fishing rights agreed before the July extension deadline so that will be the first capitulation.

The only way is to walk away from this rabble. That’s a BXP policy by the way, but one our host agrees with.
When these contortions are laid out on the beach in the sun and the tide recedes, somebody somewhere will ask why on earth we voted tory in the GE and for this damned agreement, and not BXP and to walk away? The only true answer is Corbyn and Labour as the alternative, but that’s not good enough.

You understand little of the world steel market Martin
Even cheap Eastern European steel is now being undercut by Chinese steel.
It is nothing to do with Brexit.
Non specialist UK steel will struggle in world markets due to economies if scale.
Look it up on the internet before you post.

What on earth are you on about?
You think businesses (including ports) will cut off their noses and use blockades?
We have a £95bn trading deficit with the Eu.
Your logic is so illogical it is unbelievable.
By the way, it is against International Law for economic blockades, whilst also noting that the Eu have a history of using and abusing their own laws.

First, BJ is reportedly to be disinterested in it, it just ‘has to get done’ so he can take credit.

Second, according to BOTH the EU and UK government analysis on their websites, the WA (not including the PD) is not materially different from the May Treaty, which we all agreed was the worst proposed treaty this country has considered.

BJ needs to be pushed back to his original position of ‘disaggregation’ of May’s deal and get down to work to make it reasonable OR leave without it, since it is not required to leave the EU.

This is so important, IW, re the level playing field. The whole Boris deal is, in my view, a capitulation and does not represent leaving. I saw it reported that Boris, if he wins the election, will actually try to push his deal through before Christmas. Is that possible, timing-wise, Sir John?

In order to win an election, BJ has created a straightjacket for the UK in negotiations with Barnier. By promising to leave by the end of 2o20, at every point in negotiation, Barnier is going to say, “Sorry, we can’t move on to the next negotiating point until you concede our position on this one and unless we move on there is no chance of you achieving your timetable. ” Unfortunately we do not believe that BJ has any intention of pressing the red button once he sees, as expected, that the EU is winning the conventional war.

Howe subtly changed his tune once BJ’s deal was a fait acompli. However, his actual analysis, his working out, still stands, and it gives no cause for optimism, the reason being that any meaningful Brexit somewhere down the line is entirely dependent on a PM and his party having the guts to go for it. Not only do BJ and the Tories not have the guts for a proper Brexit, they don’t have the desire for it!

That this is so is blindingly obvious, because, as our kind host has himself made clear, a clean and proper Brexit does not require a WA, and in fact is not possible with one! If BJ was serious about Brexit, he would have sought a mandate for it from the electorate, having jettisoned the dead weight of the WA. Instead, he’s invested all his political capital in his ‘new’ deal.

I suspect you may actually realise this as a dyed in the wool Tory, but then again, if you’re putting your faith in ‘reliable experts’, then perhaps you have not yourself understood the nature and implications of the WA.

“But all nations allow some limited fishing rights for others in their exclusive economic zones. It would be ironic if those who support trade liberalisation – and open and competitive markets – then demanded that no other country should have any access and that all fish caught in UK waters should be landed in the UK.” Shanker Singham
BrexitCentral Straw men are us.

Still nothing here on how you expect the EU to interpret the agreed-to WA treaty clause “open and fair competition, encompassing robust commitments to ensure a level playing field, for which tax is in scope”.

Dear Sir Joe–Yes, to Hades with a level playing field. If a village has two fish and chips shops why, provided of course no laws are broken, should I care about anything other than which is cheaper and tastier. An imposed level playing field encourages complacency.

Our host is correct. Unfortunately the WA will effectively prevent such sound policies for a very long time. Pointless decarbonization will go a long way to bankrupting the country and an ever left leaning Tory party will complete the job!

All good ideas but I doubt we will see them proposed this side of the election.

Corbyn was extraordinarily inadequate in his interview with Andrew Neil. Petulant, defensive and in complete denial of the cancer of anti-Semitism at the heart of the Labour party. Contrary to Corbyn’s flanneling, anti-Semitism became an issue in the Labour Party when he became leader. We never heard about it before.

He was also startlingly ignorant. His main economic policy is to get the ‘rich’ which he defines as the top 5% of income tax payers to pay more. Yet he had no clue that they already pay 50% of total income tax (and probably 100% of CGT). He was lucky Neil didn’t ask about corporation tax. Corbyn is probably unaware receipts have nearly doubled since the coalition and Tories started cutting the rates.

It is amazing that there are reportedly 25-30% of voters who are thinking of voting Labour, led as it is by a bunch a far left zealots with a plan for rapid national bankruptcy.

Indeed. Osborne and Hammond have kindly given us the highest (and most idiotic) taxes for 40+ years. From this vastly overtaxed (and over regulated) position higher tax rates still would raise less tax not more.

Corbyn policies would destroy the tax base very quickly indeed and kill most investment. Just the threat of him is already doing great economic damage. Let us hope the voters are not conned by his many fake promises.

i think the impact of the threat of Corbyn is grossly underestimated, and so would expect a significant bounce should the Conservatives be re-elected with a decent majority, and the spectre of marxism is lifted. at the moment we hear a lot about brexit uncertainty – which I’m sure is a factor – but next to nothing about socialism uncertainty, which is surely much more significant.

“It is amazing that there are reportedly 25-30% of voters who are thinking of voting Labour,” Richard1

Why is it? If you were on benefits who would you vote for – only the richest 5% will pay to make your life more comfortable, women on the news with five children in poverty no man on the scene – which State husband will provide more Labour or Tory?

Waspi women bribed with other people’s money (their own children if they think about it). If they were public sector workers don’t tell me that their unions didn’t inform them (as they claim they were uninformed) from 1993 onwards about the changes coming to state pensions because I read information leaflets from the tuc at the time. Why didn’t their unions inform them of the graduated increase from 60 – 65? It’s being represented as a pension pay back for all 1950’s women BUT is it, does Corbyn just mean the changes from 2011?

Students just 18 -20 two cohorts what about 400,000 teenagers who personally won’t have a graduate tax to pay at 9% of their salary for 30 years, what’s not to like about paying less tax when you personally start work. They’re forgetting they are the ambitious ones who are undertaking a degree to get better paid positions than they can without one – mugs.

Corbyn talks about people earning over £80,000 how many of them are graduates paying their 20% income tax, 12% national insurance, 40% tax and 2% national insurance over £50,000 + 5% nest already, + 9% student loan tax? – that’s 56% over the uel. As doctors and consultants have shown they just down tools and stop doing the overtime and reassess their investments abroad.

What a very strange post. Far from making “selective increases in public sector employment with teachers, police and doctors”, the Conservative government has spent the last nine years cutting teachers, police and doctors. Who do you think you are trying to fool?

Poor, poor public sector workers. All that early retirement, fat pensions, generous sick pay and job security. How will they ever cope when they retire at massive expense to a 64 year old van driver on £8 per hour?

This ‘poor me, poor me’ narrative of the public sector is becoming tiresome indeed

Sorry, mate, but if at 64, the van driver is not even able to fight to get the minimum wage of £8.21/hour, whose responsibility is it? What about if he had studied/trained a bit more 40 years ago and become anything but a van driver? Or is he satisfied being the usual whingeing type?

This whingeing narrative by people who appear to never ‘have got on their bike’ is becoming tiresome indeed.

Sorry FUS, but I guess it is people of your kind who applauded when trade unions practically disappeared from the private sector, and were very weakened in the public sector.
As for whingers, you have your choice on this blog, on one end the Dominics and on the other end the Lifelogics, but what do they do if not whingeing.

hefner – – the jobs are just not there. We have supermarkets full of youngsters with arms full of ‘A’ levels and degrees. The pubs and restaurants employ the same over qualified, most of the population in the West or North are on minimum wage. Many survive on seasonal work… Wake up and smell the coffee.

hefner….please explain what has taken me 40 years to wake up to? Born way before the EEC and with a reasoning mind by then – as an angry (well quite angry) detractor to all things supposedly great about the EU, I have watched the immigration problem cause a) such resentment b) lowering of hourly wages AND c) reluctant membership of the EU forced Cameron to avoid defeat by finally offering the Ref d)loss of a fishing industry e) endless H&Safety rules f) centralising of manufacturing to Germany g) preoccupation of France with the CAP h) absence of any meaningful veto on EU matters …. I won’t go on its just so annoying and recently boring that the masses don’t recognise when they are being shafted and offer no explanations as to why they feel they are not. Boris following May into trying to convince this is great when it is in fact yet another beating.

Marty . . ..well you tried to ignore the point that unemployment (especially the young who need to get started into occupational pensions) is rife in so many EU countries. Fact? Lucky old Germany & France.

My neighbour, 48 years old tommorow retires from the police with a £100 k lump sum and £30 k annual inflation adjusted pension.
Then he tells me he starts after Christmas as a civilian doing the same job
Nice when you can get it.

Ian, It’s the same with local councils. They get pushed out of one position because of incompetence and then offered another similar job. They pick up their pensions and any lumps sums and then go straight into another position. It would seem positions are created. No wonder our council taxes are rising and we get less for our money.

A silly post. The Labour Party in govt took the deficit to over 10% of GDP with a consequent collapse of confidence. Of course there had to be be consolidation to sort out this mess – most of which of course came from tax rises not ‘cuts’. The coalition and Tories have now got the deficit down to close to 1% – and with no recession at any point and record low unemployment. The long line of leftist commentators who slammed the policy were wrong.

No doubt due to the last Liebor government bankrupting the country and the present government following EU policy on deficit reduction.
Mustn’t mention that. EU is a force for good and prosperity (not). so we are told.

A good policy to make us better off, not referred to above, is to slim down the bloated state.
Rather than do this, I see Johnson has proposed introducing a “Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission”. Yet another quango that will end up infested with liberal left activists, costing the taxpayer.

A good policy is one that a majority of the electorate will vote . No other measure of success. The political narrative has moved towards the centre and the vacuum on the right, where many of us bloggers would go is being left empty because it would not get sufficient support or split the centre right and let Corbyn in.

The Labour Party has been very clever in making the Austerity accusation stick plus the ‘for the few, not the many’ and I know many people believe it.

The Tories need to counter that. Being seen to still link with policies of the ‘Nasty Party’ will not help them electorally.

People on either side of the political divide are free to push any thing they like. If they never get elected, I cannot see the point. Politics is about compromise. Give away what is needed (hopefully not much) gain the prize of being able to enact the rest of your manifesto.

You might like to look at the purpose of this before your fire off. It’s task to look at everything from the House of Lords to the Civil Service in the light of their ‘anti democratic’ dysfunctional behaviour with a view to getting them fit for 21st century purpose.

I sense the hand of Dominic Cummins, trendy and left wing, almost certainly not. Stymied by the liberal elite, I suspect they will have a go, but Cummins, if the Tories get in, is no pushover.

Exactly. Still far too many ‘working’ for the state with much better benefits than those in the private sector. A good start would be to end their guaranteed over generous taxpayer funded pensions and subject them to the markets like those in the private sector have to do.

And what ever happened to the reduction to 600 of MPs especially as 117 of them are part-time and have the bulk of their workloads done for them by other parliaments.? How much do the Sinn Fein cost in salaries, expenses and pensions when they don’t even taken up their positions in parliament? I read somewhere they even keep London homes at taxpayers’ expense. Yet another broken promise chucked into the long grass by self serving MPs whose main priority is obviously keeping their snouts in the Westminster Gravy train. And then there’s 850 and growing Lords and Ladies with their £300 tax free daily allowance sometimes just staying long enough sign in.

What I write above assumes a Tory majority, something one would be brave to bet against at this stage. Still, it is not a foregone conclusion, if for no other reason than that it is difficult to discern what is, and what is not, real. And voting intention polls are hardly a rock to cling to in such a storm of lies and chaos.

There is only one reason to vote Conservative and that is to prevent Marxism taking hold of this nation’s government and our country. After reading this article nothing has changed my attitude

I understand why Sir John chooses to focus on topics that are non-contentious and in the present febrile environment that is entirely understandable. To step outside his normal remit and focus on non-economic issues or those issues that would attract opprobrium from direct activists is also understandable

It is disturbing to think that the second main party still enjoys a degree of acceptability. I find that extremely disturbing and is a direct consequence of your party’s inaction and its refusal to enter into debating territory that you now believe to be injurious.

In effect your agenda is an agenda dictated by the liberal left media. That is a complete rejection of the truth.

The British public deserved to be told of Labour’s grand plan to change this country out of all recognition and your party refuses to do that

They should lower and simplify nearly all taxes and cull the vast areas of the state sector expenditure that does nothing useful. Indeed often does positive harm. Cut the anti-growth green crap, go for easy hire and fire, stop attacking UBER and the gig economy. Just get the government off the backs of the productive cull parasitic jobs in the state sector and the private sector. Get energy prices down what is the point of exporting energy intensive industries with no reduction in net world C02 emissions anyway? Not that C02 is actually a significant problem. Relax planning, simplify taxes undo all the damage done by Brown, Darling, Osborne and Hammond.

Then start to introduce real freedom of choice in health care and education. Stop giving £50k of debts to people for the many almost worthless degrees – often in worthless subjects too. At least half of them. It would be better to give them £50k loans to start up businesses or train in something more practical. Sort out the unfairly funded BBC propaganda outfit.

But are Boris & Javid really up for any of this or are they just tax borrow and waste, big state, government knows best, green crap pushing, socialists in the Major, Cameron, May, Blair, Brown, Clegg mode?

IMO they don’t want to oppose leftwing extremists.
The Tories want to be seen as jolly good progressive chaps.
Bending over backwards to appease…thinking they are so clever.
Thinking that the Left somehow shares their cultural roots.
And taking the rest of us down the chute with them.
Even the no nonsense trad types have their limits.
Party is all…country a very poor second.

I do wish Boris would stop being so genial. He keeps referring to the French and others as ‘our friends’. Having been sent a 45E ticket from Rennes for doing 2 mph over the 70 kph limit on the way into Calais ferry, with the camera just after the invisible sign and on the bend after the 80 kph limit on the motorway, I can tell him that they are fleecing the Brits of millions and are not our friends. If he is being sarcastic, he needs to speak in a sarcastic tone or roll his eyes when speaking.

oh…and btw – -getting camera’d doing 32 in a 30 limit (even with no housing on one side of the road) in the UK, means points on the licence and an insurance hike for the life of the points. Perhaps 45 euros was cheap?

From my reading of WA1 & WA2 our more enterprising commercial initiatives will be unacceptable to the EU and the ECJ. Given a majority, Boris needs to spell it out to his new party with a view to taking us out of the EU minus any WA. Those areas of mutual advantage in our future relationship with the EU should be put into a treaty under the Vienna Convention. For future commercial relations we should offer an unconditional FTA.

Be in no doubt WA2 is an elephant trap. Read it and make up your own minds.

Where does this tosh come from. Absolutely not true as indeed our host has confirmed in the past. Indeed one if the complaints/worries of the EU is that we will turn ourselves into a ‘tax haven’ just off their shores.

AlIW, are you not ever tired of inventing things? Corporation tax is 31% in France, 30 in Germany, 25 in NL, 25 in Spain, 24 in Italy, 19 in the UK. Please tell me where you see the big hairy hands of the EU forcing all countries to have the same rate. There have been discussions indeed but they have failed in getting to any decisions.

Part of the WA covers taxation policy and BJ agreed not to reduce it further as he is committed to the level playing field.
Watch him quickly concede fishing and freedom of movement to get his deal done.

Indeed, that’s what is written in that preparatory document for the next commission. But 1/ it has not been decided (yet) and 2/ the UK will not be part of it thanks to Brexit.
My original point that you obviously missed was that Ian Wragg (as so often) had heard a cow go hee-haw but did not know in which pasture.

Alas. You can not cut tariffs from non EU sources without cutting them from
EU sources too. And, with a no deal Brexit, you can’t have tariff free components from the EU without having those same components tariff free from everywhere else.

Rejoice. These are the WTO rules you all claim to want. The WTO consisting of unelected bureaucrats who impose rules on us from Geneva.

The WTO problem is Trump is bringing it to a near standstill on the 10th of December. Trump is refusing to allow nominations to the appellate body of the dispute resolution system. It won’t be quorate from that date; the system will start backing up like the M20 post Brexit.

As JR’s manifesto has no numbers in it, the only thing that can be said is that it will get no further than the top of this page. Demographic changes alone mean that outside of serious expansion of the budget deficit; MMT style, there is not enough taxation coming from those at the median income level of circa £28,000 per year. The UK has the lowest tax take in Western Europe in this cohort.

The UK has the third largest current account (CA) deficit on the planet at 4.3%. Government has decided that the private sector households are going to pay for those imports, not the Treasury. BTW, the Euro Area has a CA surplus of 3.2%.

I see absolutely no sign that the Conservative party intend to go for low tax, low regulation policies. No do I see any sign at all of their intending to maximise the economic advantages of leaving the EU. Instead I see a business as usual attitude coupled with the intention to continue the tax and spend system pretty much unchanged.
I do not see any reason to vote for any of the politicians standing in this election other than the vague possibility that Boris’s slightly modified May surrender treaty might evenually lead to a barely tolerable Brexit and that he is merely a socialist rather than outright communist Labour.
If this is the best that our “democracy” can produce then it’s further decline is a certainty.

To many are confusing Government with Rule, confusing Democracy with Dictatorship. That is as much meant to be levied at the majority of the previous bunch of MP’s as it is to those that aspire to that position. They just don’t ‘Get It’

Why are people standing to be Democratically elected while at the same time are saying, ‘Vote for Me’ and I will ensure it will be the unelected, unaccountable people in another realm that get to Rule you.

Good Government is supposed to give accountability, transparency and participation of the People. It is supposed to create a framework where all Peoples have the opportunity to thrive in their ‘own way’. It doesn’t steal from one section to give to another, it creates the environment that one can achieve rewards they desire not be given them because you just want them.

Good Government teaches that it is the Person in the Mirror that is responsible.

A small entity such as the UK doesn’t need some 600+ wannabe rulers pontificating in a closeted HoC, so as to line their own nests above the interest of the Peoples of this country. At best it only needs 150 of sincere individuals that have the ‘calling’ to serve the people they represent

95% of teachers support a Marxist or hard left party that advocate extremely damaging green policies based upon the views of what Piers Corbyn called an ignorant brainwashed child. They are also indoctrinating children and telling them that they can change gender. Bearing in mind that British state education costs more than in most countries but produces results lagging way behind others, as it a good idea to pay for more of them?

The public sector is insatiable, you’ve forgotten fire in your list and now their unions are agitating and tweeting like crazy for big increases that only Labour are promising everyone from the magic money tree forest “The second is to make selective increases in public sector employment with teachers, police and doctors, and to expand worthwhile public investment.”

When Corbyn says he’s immediately going to push up the NMW to £10.00 or is it £10.50 now immediately – why isn’t he challenged to ask if pensions and benefits are going up by the same % increase otherwise poverty will rise and they’ll want more.

and refuse to continue to sell us the goods upon which we are so dependent.

Or, Boris Johnson might order our customs officers to carry out rigorous inspections of every consignment from the EU, even though for many years there have been hardly any inspections of the same goods from the same EU suppliers and they will continue to work to EU standards even after we, but not their countries, have left the EU.

Remember how a previous Prime Minister let it be understood that she would be holding up imports of the insulin with which she has to inject herself four times a day?

While andy would probably say if it did happen the hardest hit would be old people who were no longer fit enough to change the tyre, and that would serve them right for voting for Brexit and taking away his future.

Of course we could try to source our vital tyre pumps from Trump’s America, but only if as part of the trade deal we were happy to sell our NHS lock stock and barrel to huge heartless US corporations, as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage might want but Jeremy Corbyn would fight to the death to prevent.

Denis; your years of pseudo-intellectual comments on this site, about detailed aspects of treaties and supranational agreements that only you know and understand; just doesn’t score any real world points any more. Perhaps you need to pursue a new line in religious victimhood.

‘All foodstuffs that we are unable to grow for ourselves should also be tariff free.’

Sorry, the ideal is good, but this is too simplistic:
We do not want heavily subsidised imports flooding our markets and putting our farmers out of work. Tariiffs would need to be set to balance such subsidies, or for us to subsidise our farmers equally, so as to provide our farmers with fair competition.
If a foreign exporter can produce cheaper or better quality foodstuffs without subsidy – then they should be tariff free, benefiting our consumers.
Goods that we cannot produce ourselves such as tropical fruits, tea and coffee should also be tariff free, regardless of subsidy.
Goods that do not meet our standards on animal welfare (and GMO crops?) should be banned.

We are often reminded that the Political Declaration is not legally binding, but this surely cuts both ways: the PD is no more binding on the EU than it is on the UK. As things stand, a Conservative-majority government would ratify the Withdrawal Agreement, including Part Five (financial settlement), Art. 127 (UK subject to new EU laws during transition period, with some apparent exceptions), Art. 174 (ECJ supremacy), and Art. 129(6) (UK deference to EU foreign policy). My question is: once the UK has made these legally binding commitments, what is to prevent the EU from reverting to its original negotiating position on the future relationship, given the UK government’s attitude to a “no deal” scenario?

The issue of tax on doctors’s pay – which as we know has led to a chronic level of understaffing – is, I suspect, the same as the issue I face and it is not the 45/40% income tax band.

The issue is the gradual removal of the personal income tax allowance at a rate of £1 for every £2 earned above £100K. So someone earning £125,000 has no zero tax band on the first £12,500 of their income and people whose earnings fall in that band face an effective marginal tax rate of over 60%.

I think it is this issue specifically that has caused doctors to eschew overtime and prefer part time or retirement. Their pay falls right into that band. I work as an Airline Pilot and we face the same issues and this, in large part, explains why we are seeing flights more frequently cancelled over the summer months.

The tax rates on Landlords can easily be well over 100% due the the fact that they are now taxed on profits they have not even made – this as interest is no longer fully deductible it is totally unsustainable. This moronic and grossly unfair tax, introduced by the economic illiterate Osborne and retained by the equally idiotic Hammond needs to be undone now too. It forces landlords to evict tenants and sell up – or increase rents significantly if they can.

Where did I say anything about London? And of course London has big parks thanks to the Victorians.
Libertarian would you like to join me on a tour of Reading to Bracknell – the housing and road development will of course mean you giving up a day to drive down each road leaving each ORIGINAL settlement, examples being Earley, Lower Earley, Sindlesham, Shinfield, Twyford, Winnersh, Hurst, Wokingham, Binfield, Bracknell, Warfield. Hardly any gaps between them left, thousands of new houses being built AND planned for each of 10 years ahead – YES another 10 years being in the PLAN. Perhaps our host who represents most of this area would like to comment? Tell me I am wrong?

Reply I have been keen to defend green areas amidst the housing development. Dinton Pastures is the largest example, but we have a range of parks, farmland and other green gaps in the eastern half of my constituency. The western half is more rural.

Corby said yesterday “I do not want anyone to feel insecure in our society” – except I suppose landlords, anyone one with any assets, investments or who has higher earnings, anyone who will lose £250 from loss of their married couple allowance, anyone with pensions savings or shares, anyone who want to live in a real democracy not controlled by the anti-democratic EU, anyone who works hard or wants decent health care, education or some freedom as to how they spend their own money. Anyone who wants to have sound, strong & well run defence forces.

Most of these people will surely all feel rather insecure should he get any sniff of power – if they are not already.

Sorry,sorry! Not on topic.
A “leak” re selling NHS to US which the Left is trumpeting.
Someone needs to talk VERY LOUDLY about New Labour and PFIs
ie there is ALREADY a private element in the NHS.
( I think Major started them but NL took them to extremes.)

All the NHS is run for profit the nurses profit, the doctors/surgeons profit, the GPs profit, the admin people profit, the suppliers profit, the suppliers and drug companies. Unfortunately it is run very badly indeed free at the point of rationing, long delays and often non supply is no way to run it or fund it.

LL. When we lived in Scotland our doctors used to work 3 days a week and then do locum work at other surgeries for more money per shift. They would arrange it amongst themselves to cover each others different surgeries so they could earn more by not working in their own surgeries. Nice if you can get it. I see now that they are considering not doing home visits. Great if you have pneumonia and have to get out of bed to go to the surgery.

The growing disrespect for the professions, including Doctors & GPs, the lack of Policing, and the inclination of the Police to prosecute everyone in sight, rather that investigate an incident and establish cause and effect.

And not least, over the last thirty years the number of female GPs has exploded, the result being a female is less inclined than a male to tolerate walking around by herself at 2am on a lonely council estate.

The Doctors surgeries know who abuses their services and who doesn’t, they know which patients haven’t been in for ten years and which patients come in for free paracetamol and a chat.

Instead of lumping us all in as ‘the disrespectful few’ they can’t because we all get cut. You pay your money, you get no choice, my parents surgery still do some home visits probably on the receptionist checker’s authorisation but it is too far away for me to choose their surgery over my own.

We have to go to A&E out of hours service after 6pm 30 minutes drive away, no public transport, that’s how they had to cut the abuse of people not being bothered to go in the day time and just calling them out at night back from 2004.

APL – – are you seriously suggesting that most GP call-outs will mean a 2am visit to a lonely council estate? At least they are generally street lit – the lonelier the better I’d have thought.
These stupid examples get worse by the day.

I wonder why British broadcasters and the very expensive propaganda and lobbying office close to parliament and Downing Street apparently take exactly the same line on everything related to left wing politics and progressive issues ?

It must be just an innocent random coincidence !

Mustn’t it ?

When you listen to a British political program, do you wonder sometimes whom you are really listening to.. and who is setting the agenda ?

The Scottish population is 5.4 million. The UK population is knocking 70 million. Scotland has voted to be part of the UK by more votes than the Snp got to put them in power. Why does the media bombard us with wingeing Scottish voices constantly bemoaning their minority position. They are irrelevant.

She is rather like an educated version of Rab C Nesbitt’s wife. This is considered attractive and even posh in the lowland industrial belt where the SNiPs are concentrated. So long as they succeed in shafting the English for freebies the vote is guaranteed.

Agree, Sturgeon is getting far too much air time and far too much money. Everytime there is the threat of the Scottish Parliament making waves they get given more money. Don’t they already get enough free? If a child in Scotland goes to university they don’t leave with any debt and then can come into England and get a job and all is well with the world. It’s a different story for English students who all leave with debt unless their parents can afford to pay for their courses. How is this fair? No wonder many English people wouldn’t be sorry to see the Scots go. We are fed up with their moaning and the special treatment they get.

btw A High Court Judge in an English Court as quoted verbatim in the Daily Telegraph not so many years ago in their legal section warned a barrister that he would immediately ban him from the Court …(if my memory serves me right)…for three months because and I paraphrase “You must speak the Queens English, not legalese!”( my exclamation mark ).
Legalese is NOT the English Language.

I agree with the cut in stamp duty. It would make it easier for people to move house and encourage mobility, helping the labour market.

Cutting the 40% top rate of tax might make sense economically. But politically it is a terrible idea. It would only benefit people earning over £50,000 and would simply reinforce the general perception that the Tories are the party of the rich. Much better to either lower the lowest rate, or increase the tax-free income threshold.

Indeed turnover taxes are always a bad idea and very damaging at 15% (or now even a proposed 18% they are completely bonkers). They destroy job mobility, prevent people moving or down sizing and thus damage the economy and living standards. At these levels they even reduce the tax take too.

Dear Sir John,
You have often pointed out that it would be better to trade with the EU single market on WTO rules than to be pushed into a one-sided trade agreement. The same must be true for the United States. Ms Truss made clear, before Labour produced its working party documents, that there would be no FTA if the US insisted on axing or diluting the NHS’s monopsony drug-buying power.
What worries me is that the working party was on “UK-US Trade and Investment”, not just trade. Proposals on formal legal investment rights/opportunity/protection for an EU-US Trade and Investment Agreement (whatever happened to that) would genuinely have threatened, among other things, the structure of the NHS. I imagine the same proposals would be included in any UK-US deal. Our present mutual investment arrangements work fine. No new legal deal is needed and should be avoided.

As one of many paying for the dire shortcomings of the NHS, I’d be very happy if its expensive, ramshackle, union- and producer-captured ‘structure’ was not merely threatened but completely re-configured.

I tend to agree with you Mancunius but these things should be decided by us all openly rather than by lawyers in unaccountable courts (or by the EU). And at present it seems that even more than 52 per cent disagree.

Saw the whole of the Trump rally in Florida. He appeared with Governor Ron DeSantis
Trump has Presidentially authorised 30% or (maybe 30% of the price ) cheaper generic drugs to be imported from Canada for Florida and is going to authorise it for other states which he said what amounts to… filter through the drugs industry and I take it that it means it will force US drugs companies to lower their prices which he has all ready told them to do anyway. Trump is probably just helping them to do the right thing. Corbyn was no doubt too busy to watch. Shock and Awe! 🙂
No legislation just Trump immediately!

The problem for the US is the medical cartel. The won’t advertise prices, and you can go into hospital and be financially raped, with off plan charges.

Trump needs to break the medical monopoly in the US. There are one or two places in the US where doctors and surgeons make a very respectable living with out exploiting their patients, those places have no shortage of customers.

Trump isn’t disliked in the UK as much as the SNP and Labour party say and think he is. He’s just one of those topics you’re best no having an opinion on. Lots of working-class previous Labour voters I know think he’s ok and just wants to do better for working-class Americans.

Your word in God’s ear, Sir John. If a forthcoming Tory government cannot hold firm to its principal policy of leaving the EU by the end of 2020; if it does not immediately repeal the 2011 FTPA, manages no root-and-branch constitutional reform of the Lords, continues to stall on implementing boundary reforms and the reduction of the HoC, and just carries on backpedalling and trying to hold onto power, adopting and internalising the policies and criticisms of the Opposition and wasting time – then the Conservative Party stands every chance of not existing by the time of the next election.

I tend to agree with you Mancunius but these things should be decided by us all openly rather than by lawyers in unaccountable courts (or by the EU). And at present it seems that even more than 52 per cent disagree.

Which of Corbyn’s policies would he have to scrap if his referendum deal left us in the EU?

The EU wouldn’t allow nationalisation, or would they?
Treating women differently than men for pensions and not following the terms of the Pensions Act 1995, would they then have to bring men’s pension age down to keep to the terms of the EU equality acts.

We cannot afford to cut all tax rates and simultaneously raise public expenditure as a proportion of GDP. If some tax rates are cut, the yield will go up (Laffer curve effect); the top rate of income tax and CGT come into this category.

The Government has cancelled two tax cuts. Corporation will remain at 19%. The threshold for the 40% tax rate will not be raised (expect increased yield from inflation and fiscal drag). Perhaps a modest rise in fuel and booze duties will be added.

Norman Lamont has suggested that we need a latter day Norman Tebbit to make a savage attack on the economic policy in Labour’s manifesto and the accompanying grey book. It is a job for a professional politician and a speech about a week before polling day, with a simultaneous release of the full speech text to the media is the right way to do it. Sir John could do this very well if he wanted to.

As an amateur, I will do my best. I have already pointed out that Labour’s policy of borrowing to invest in capital expenditure will be a financial (cash flow) disaster. On Labour’s own admission, the average annual cost will be £55 billion and the interest per annum on State debt will rise from 6% of public expenditure to 10%. Now that £60 billion has to be added to the borrowing during the first 5 years, the annual borrowing will rise to £67 billion and the annual interest on State debt to 12% of public expenditure.

Labour will also be disappointed with the revenue it hopes to raise:
– It anticipates £11.4 billion gross, £5.4 billion net from increasing the top rates of income tax. In reality, the yield will go down, reversing the trend in the 1980s.
– it anticipates £30 billion gross from raising corporation tax to 21% for SMEs and 26% standard rate, from the current 19%. In reality, more multi-nationals will declare their profits in low rate countries like the Irish Republic and The Netherlands. More importantly, gross profits will crash because of the nationalisation of many companies and allocating 10% of shares and a place on the board to the Bruvvers in the other companies. They will be lucky to raise half of that £30 billion.
– it anticipates raising £18 billion gross, £14 billion net, from taxing capital gains and dividends at income tax rates, that is at 40%+ for higher earners. The likely yield will be much less because people will find ways of avoiding higher CGT.

The Labour grey book estimates raising a total of £59.4 billion gross, £49.4 billion net from those three types of tax increase. £20 billion net might be more reasonable.

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He is the MP for Wokingham, first elected in 1987.